People use many different systems to send and receive messages with others, including individual emails, group emails, texts to mobile devices, etc. In addition, people also search the Internet for information. What would instead be desired is a communication platform that quickly and easily identifies people and places them into various communities such that these people can be quickly contacted in the event of an emergency. Ideally, such a system would both give people the option as to what communities they wish to join and also assign them into various communities on the basis of their physical locations (which change from time to time).
For example, building managers and property owners would like to communicate quickly and efficiently with people on their property. This is especially important in times of emergencies such as when police or fire departments are active in the building or on the property. Unfortunately, due to the many different (and private) ways in which people communicate electronically with one another, it can be difficult (if not impossible) to quickly reach all of the people in the building or on the property and quickly notify them in the event of an emergency in the building or on the property. Simply put, when an emergency occurs on a building or property, building management has two basic problems: (1) finding out who is on their property, and (2) communicating quickly with them.
What is instead desired is an integrated system for: (1) quickly locating persons on the building or property, and (2) sending messages informing them of the nature of an emergency. Ideally, such a system would seamlessly work in the background on people's smartphones such that people entering the building or property would not be not required to first “check-in” with building management. Rather, an ideal system would seamlessly automatically check these people in as they physically entered the property. Such a system would thus know who exactly is in the building or on the property at the time of the emergency.
In addition, emergency alert messages would preferably be delivered to the people in the building or property community in a manner that overrides any smart devices that are set to “silent” or “do not disturb” and have their sound or screen notifications turned off. Instead, it would be preferable to interrupt such alert-inhibiting “do not disturb” settings in the case of actual emergencies. Optionally, such a system could also send messages to people who are not physically present on the property at the time, but who have previously “identified” themselves as being connected to the property (for example, commuters returning to the building on their way home from work would wish to be notified of any building emergencies). Optionally, such a novel communication system could also send non-emergency information to people determined to be on the property (for example, the system could send messages about building elevators, parking, or even advertisements from businesses on the property). Optionally as well, such a system could also provide non-building-specific information to building occupants (for example, it could send messages or information about traffic, news and weather). As will be explained herein, the present system can meet these above desires.